Cuckoo

Every year there's a cuckoo calling from the trees above the Ormsaigbeg road, and this year the male arrived on time and has been working his way back and forth along the croft lands for the last two weeks.  Catching him on camera isn't easy, as he tends to call from within a bush or tree, and then moves quickly to his next perch, but this afternoon, having been calling from the woodland at the top of the road, he flew out and briefly perched on a rock.

As the cuckoo calls the first of the soft fruit is beginning to form in the vegetable garden at the back of the house.  After the soaking the ground had over the winter, we fully expected the strawberries to have drowned, but they look good.  One should never count one's chickens, but if they go on like this we'll have a bumper year.

We have three gooseberry bushes, all of different types, and they seem to take turns in doing well.  The one that did best last year looks pretty miserable, but this one looks promising.  But we have to keep a close watch on the gooseberries as one of our worst garden pests is the gooseberry sawfly whose larvae look like caterpillars.  Given the chance, they'll eat all the leaves off a gooseberry bush in a few hours.